Bogoso St Augustine’s Senior High School, a relatively unsung but proud second cycle institution credited with having churned out hundreds of top-grade technocrats and academics over the years, has taken delivery of two sets of modern Brass Band equipment donated by BAPSA, the school’s past students’ association.
BAPSA (the Bogoso St Augustine’s Past Students Association) in Ghana teamed up with its overseas branches in North America and Europe to procure and donate two sets of regimental brass band gear for their alma mater, with hopes of uplifting the school’s visibility through music, promoting hands-on training in music, enriching social activities on campus and generally making the school attractive within the Bogoso community.
At a colourful presentation ceremony at Bogoso last week, the national executives of BAPSA handed over the instruments, valued at GH¢50,000 to school authorities and over 1,000 students gathered at the school’s church hall. The instruments included sets of trumpets, cornets, French-horns, flugelhorns, trombones, euphoniums, tubas and bugles, along with two sets of parade drums.
Both BAPSA and school officials are agreed that the instruments have come to fill a huge void, as Augusco (Bogoso St Augustine’s Senior High) has had to rent equipment or hire bands from its thin resources for social and extra-curricular events over the years. The Chairman of BAPSA, Lawyer Kwamena Ewusi-Brown, therefore charged both the authorities and students to make best use of the instruments.
“We have had two significant homecoming experiences here on this campus during the past couple of years…..and it is so sad that on both occasions we had to endure the embarrassment and inconveniences of having to hire a band from either Prestea or Tarkwa for our programmes,” Lawyer Ewusi-Brown lamented.
Stressing that those incidents greatly influenced and inspired BASPA’s decision to acquire the instruments, the Chairman noted that besides their pursuit of academic routines and goals, most schools of similar pedigree to Augusco have regimental and other musical groups that help to enrich their extra-curricular and recreational pastimes.
“In our time for instance, schools like St Johns in Sekondi hit the limelight and became enviable among the national student population, not only through academic scholarship but even more through the popularity of its school bands – Mathew Chapter 5 and The Saints. I can still recall the sheer frenzy and excitement among students when in our days Chapter 5 came over to perform for us at the Augusco Old Site,” said Lawyer Ewusi-Brown.
Lawyer Benjamin Ackaah-Gyasi, second Vice-Chairman of BAPSA, said he is personally delighted that a dream nurtured by the Association’s executives barely two years ago has come to fruition.
“These musical instruments we present to you today come from the contributions of old students here in Ghana and our compatriot old students in North America – specifically in the United States,” Lawyer Ackaah-Gyasi explained, charging the school to take great care of the equipment.
“We expect you to take good care of these instruments, so you can leave them for other students to benefit from their use and thereby promote the school’s image and its students’ among second cycle schools and the within the Bogoso community at large,” he said.
Mrs. Felicia Ackaah-Gyasi, a senior alumnus of the school and wife of the 2nd Vice-Chairman, urged the new generation of Augusco students to be mindful of peer pressure, eschew the tendency of copying blindly, and endeavour to take full advantage of modern learning aids like the Internet (which older BAPSA members were not privileged to have), and the abundance of information provided by social media.
Rev. Fr. Ignatius Miah Whajah, the school’s Headmaster, after receiving the instruments on behalf of the school administration and students, expressed gratitude to BAPSA for its continuous support to the school. He gave assurance that the instruments will be properly maintained to archive their purpose, and entreated alumni of the school to maintain their interest in and support for Augusco.
BAPSA members have over the past six years extended considerable support to their alma mater in the form of projects and donations – among which are construction of a urinal block; electricity extension to the School Church Building; donation of a corn-milling machine; donation of a state-of-the-art multi-purpose printer; a lawn-mower and a poly-tank for water storage.
Bogoso St Augustine’s Senior High School used to be an integral part of St Augustine’s College Cape Coast, which simultaneously offered two different courses; namely Secondary School courses and a Teacher Training programme. In 1957, when the Catholic Church thought it prudent to separate the two courses, the Teacher Training section was transferred from Cape Coast to Bogoso in the Western Region and later converted into a secondary school.
